Like You Were My Friend
by Imber Nox
Summary: Feliciano Vargas was part of the Resistenza Italia, but luck has never quite been on his side. Finding himself the victim of several concentration camps and German soldiers, Feli finds himself in the presence of Gestapo solder: Lieutenant Beilschmidt. He makes the choice to trust the German, but can he be so sure that he will not be betrayed: in such a world as Nazi Germany?
1. Uno

Mornings were always the hardest for Feliciano Veneziano Vargas. He would wake to the cruel calling of one of the upper prisoners, stomach shrinking on itself. He would wake to the cramped space of a single bunk: a bunk shared by fifteen men. His brother, Romano, would wake just after him, grumbling curses in their native tongue. This morning was no different from the rest.

"Cazzo questo," rolled off of Romano's tongue. Straightening up, Feli noticed one of the other prisoner's accidentally collapse onto Romano's back. "Merda," Romano cursed again and scrambled out from underneath the man's light weight.

Feli and Romano stood side-by-side in the rows, not daring to share a glance. Feli's fingers itched to hold Romano's hand. He was afraid. He was always terrified. The soldier entered the small, cramped, disease-filled room and began ordering men up one by one, name ringing out in the horrified air.

Some names were German, some were distinctly Jewish, and then some were the names that rolled fluidly off the tongue: Romano's and Feli's. Feli was called up first like he was every morning. Standing in front of the doctor, he forced himself to meet the man's eyes. He straightened his back and tensed his shoulders. The pen flicked to the other side of the room.

Feli's heart thudded painfully with the knowledge that he would make it through another day. Romano's name was next. The doctor examined Romano with contempt. Romano was known for starting fights over food in the barracks. He would die before Feli, surely. Romano kept this from Feli.

The pen flicked to the side of the room where Feli stood. Romano joined his brother wordlessly, and Feli finally managed a sweet feeling of relief. His brother, too, was allowed another day. Standing so close together that it couldn't be seen, Feli clutched in terror onto Romano's hand behind their backs.

One of the other men, the one after Romano, was called by his name. "Hemkst, Wilhelm." The man, contrary to his German name, had dark hair and dark eyes.

His shoulders were frail, like a bird's, and he shook from exhaustion even more than Feli had shaken from fear when his brother had stood under that decisive stare. The pen flicked outside. The man opened his mouth in wordless protest. The soldiers standing beside the doctor dragged him out, ignoring his feverish pleas in German for mercy.

It continued like this for a good hour, maybe two. When the men were dismissed for their hard labor, Feli and Romano were separated to their different jobs. Feli went to the so-called "graveyard". A shovel in his blistered hands, he began to dig routinely with the other prisoners.

Meanwhile, Romano was sent to the crematoriums, where he fed the fires the bodies with sickening disgust. He considered himself lucky, nonetheless. He didn't belong to the crematorium next door, where the children were fed to the licking flames alive and very much aware of the agony of it all. Even so, he could still hear the screams and groans of those poor victims. The bodies he shoveled into the ovens let him think of how, every morning, it could be Feli or himself in those ashes.

… … …

Feli loved looking at the sky while he worked. Sometimes, though it wasn't often, a bird would fly overhead. Feli would think of how free the bird was, how light its feathers must be to its unburdened body. He wanted to fly himself and Romano away from this place, back to beautiful Italy where the music filled the streets and the weather wasn't so bitterly cold.

"Keep digging," a sore voice whispered from beside him.

Feli stared in shock at his digging partner, who was in no better shape than Wilhelm Hemkst had been that morning when his fate had been decided with a mere flick of a pen. Feli hadn't realized that he had stopped digging. Hurriedly, he continued on with his job.

Romano had always complained at how distracted Feli was: thinking when he shouldn't be and refraining from work when he should be working hard. Feli knew that Romano doubted how long Feli would hold on to life under these harsh conditions. He wanted not only to prove to his brother that he could do it, but he didn't want to die.

Before this, Feli thought that everyone loved children. Seeing when the bullets had sprayed into the crowd, and children had fallen to sleep in crimson lakes, Feli now realized that he had entered a world where there was no exclusive love for children. When people cried out from the pain of a beating, a woman crying as she was brutally raped, Feli knew that he had entered a heartless world.

As much as Romano had tried to protect his brother before now, he knew it was hopeless to shield his younger brother from evil in such a place. Feli had taken it oddly well, with a horrified numbness that shocked away the tears and the wails of loss. Feli had only whimpered in blind terror as he cowered with Romano.

"I want to fly like the birds," Feli whispered, stealing another glance at the winter clouds stacked high above, just like the foul-smelling smoke from the chimneys. The man didn't reply.

Feli turned, confused. Usually, the other man muttered something in response. To his horror, the man wasn't standing anymore. He was slumped against the ground, eyes closed and wheezing. Feli bent down to his knees, abandoning his shovel.

"Get up," Feli tried urging the man. "Come on; don't get the soldiers' attention on us! We'll get in so much trouble! Wake up, please. Per favore?"

"Sie! Halten sie graben!" the harsh voice of a German cut through the air.

Feli, who didn't know a single word in German other than 'links' for sinsitra and 'recht' for destra, knew that those angry words were directed at him and his partner. He shook his partner even more, not minding that he was now screaming for his partner to move in a mix of Italian and slanged English.

The click of a gun sent him to his knees, facing the armed man, begging and pleading for his life. The soldier's steely gaze was trained on Feli's panic-stricken features. "Halten sie graben," the man repeated in a growling shout.

Guessing wildly, Feli dove for his shovel and continued digging through his measured sobs. The man walked away, Feli could hear from the footsteps, and Feli let his sobs ring out. The man beside Feli rustled and went to move closer to the terrified Italian. A loud bang rang through the air, and the man crippled.

Feli wondered what had happened, searching the man's wide eyes, before he saw the dark stain of black creeping through the ragged fabric of the striped clothing. It was blood, and the ugliest blood Feli had ever seen. It was nothing like the blood he saw when he scraped his knee running through the streets of Palermo with Romano. It was dark, ugly, and evil.

Feli gasped and quickly resumed digging, trying to close his eyes to the poor man dead beside him. He flinched when the body was torn away from the hole, and Feli risked a glance upwards. It was the German soldier, holding Feli at point blank.

"Halten sie graben," the man shouted one last time before stomping off.

Feli didn't hesitate to continue digging. Now, without a partner, he wasn't working as fast. When the soldiers stopped by, they would yell and shoot off blanks into the air. At least, that's what Feli told himself resolutely. They were just blanks, they were just blanks. They weren't firing real bullets into the beautiful, blue sky. They couldn't be shattering the clouds to let that blue sky show through. They wanted his day to be grey, like the cold.

When the day ended, Feli was given only half of his usual rations. It wasn't nearly enough to last him through the night for inspection tomorrow. He shook on the bunk, squished by all fourteen other men. He shook with terror from the gun that had been pointed at him, grief for the man he never knew, and for fear of what the next day would bring.

Romano had noticed his brother's unusual silence. Most nights, Feli would try to keep the other men's spirits high by telling tales of Italy in as much English as he could muster. Feli met his brother's green gaze and fell into the arms of family with shaking sobs.

"What happened?" Romano whispered into Feli's hair.

Feli only sobbed harder, and Romano knew without asking that it had been just too rough of a day. Hiding an exhausted sigh, he split his food rations in half and gave some of his bread slice to Feli.

"Here, Feliciano," Romano urged, "mangiare."

Feli shakingly took the piece of bread that could only satisfy two bites. Tears streaming down his once-pretty cheeks, he ate the moldy bread through chokes and weeps.

"You have to be stronger," Romano chided him, trying to pretend to be angry like he always had done back home. "We've lived through the Mafia, haven't we? What's a concentration camp compared to the black market streets of Palermo?"

Feli didn't answer. The Mafia had never been this brutal. All they had done was give the brothers a few cuts from knives to remember them by. Feli's had already healed completely.

"Romano," Feli whispered. "I'm scared."

Romano didn't reply at first. He reached out to lightly touch Feli's shoulder. "I know," he replied. "This won't last forever, Feli. It can't last more than a year, can it? The Allies are working to overthrow Hitler and that damn Mussolini. They will win. The Allies have America, don't they? America will help win this war."

Feli shivered. "Mussolini is our prime minister, Romano," he murmured. "How can we go against him?"

Romano glared at his naïve brother. "Mussolini sold us and our country to Hitler. He betrayed all of Italy, Feliciano. There were reasons why we joined the Resistenza Italia. We did it for our country. We are here out of loyalty to our country. We'll get out of here because we were loyal to our country when no one else was."

Feli's bottom lip trembled. "But they've taken over France," he sobbed, hiding his face in his arms. "They've taken over Poland, and Austria, and Hungary. They've taken over Italy, and most of Denmark. How can America help us now? They're an ocean away!"

Romano did not break. "England still stands," he insisted. "And Russia, the bastardos, is giving these damn Nazis enough trouble at their Eastern front. America has bases in England, remember? Canada is there, too. This won't last long, Feli. It won't last long at all. We'll be free like your stupid birds in a year, I guarantee."

… … …

Feli learned two years later, in 1942, that this was going to take a long time. It was when he was torn apart from his brother. It was when Romano was deported to Auschwitz. He remembered the terror in Romano's green eyes when Feli's name was skipped, but Romano's name was called.

Feli sat in his bunk, crying loudly throughout the whole night since his brother was not there anymore to reassure him or hold him through the nights after a bad day. He sat in his bunk, crying loudly at how he would probably never see his brother again. He sat in his bunk, crying loudly, that he couldn't remember Italy before the war anymore with someone he loved.

A month later, when the grief wore off and settled to a dull ache in his chest at constant times and tightness in his throat that never let him speak, Feli decided that it wasn't all too bad. Another member of the Resistenza, a Spaniard, had been deported to Auschwitz along with his brother. As much as Romano hated Spaniards, he preferred Antonio over the mass of Germans. He would have a friend there.

Feli, otherwise, had no one except himself, memories of his beautiful Italia, and memories of the rare times when Romano would crack a smile or laugh.

He got through the days by pretending that he was just back in Italy, running around to do whatever Romano told him to do. He tried to not cower before the Germans, and to do his work as hard as he could.

Feli sought to help the elder prisoners, who got a bit more food and more privileges, so that they would share food with him. When he would eat an extra mouthful or two of crumbled, soggy bread and an extra scoop of soup, Feli would try to resist sharing with the others who were skinnier than him.

But he didn't. He had to be strong for his country, for Romano, and for the Resistenza. He held Romano's words to heart; he would live through this because of his undying loyalty for his country.

Life ran as smoothly as it could in Dachau. He was alive, and he wasn't as skinny as most. The doctor didn't hesitate to spare his life every morning now. When he worked at digging, he felt stronger than the man next to him. It saved his life, not being the weakest one.

And yet, well as he was doing, he could not save himself from the random victims the guards chose. He could not save himself if he accidentally strolled a bit too close to the fence, like some prisoners made the fatal mistake of doing. He could not save himself from the camp's commandant; a brutal man who liked to watch the blood pour out of the victims he selected at random to die at firing squad.

Feli shivered through the cold night, hearing many of the other prisoners coughing and wheezing. He couldn't save himself from typhoid either.


	2. Due

Feli's shift ended every day at sundown, when the commandant would order for the prisoners to line up in front of their barrack in pristine formation of hacking fits, feinting spells, and terrified trembling. Feli's barrack, 78, was right next to the glinting wire that was the edge of camp. More than one man had risked escape. None of them had even touched the wire.

Today, the snow was already dark enough to discourage anyone from trying. A new batch of prisoners had arrived, and the soldiers hadn't been fond of the scene the children had caused when they had run to pet the 'puppy' that was the German Shepard. The scene was enough to conjure leaking tears from even the oldest of the prisoners.

Names rang out into the thinly sliced air: mostly German. The men of the new batch were being appointed to barrack 78. Next, the numbers of the prisoners were called out for roll call. Feli knew his number by heart, it was etched in. Romano would have been furious, but Feli considered the faded green letters on his skin part of him now.

"772415!"

Feli looked up and forced a shout from his lips, signaling that he was there. A soldier yanked his arm out and double-checked the number on Feli's forearm. Throwing the limb back at the Italian, the German sneered. Feli swallowed, trying to not glance curiously at the Jew that was standing beside him. He was new, and his number's ink was fresh.

When roll call was over, the prisoners of Barrack 78 shuffled to their cramped, sickly bunks. Feli fell asleep to the symphony of dissonance that was a mixture of coughs, cries, and silent sobs. Grief hung in the air like thick, opaque curtains.

In the morning, Feli followed the same routine that he always did. Different this day was when his barrack was ordered to march into the nearest town. The soldiers did not tell them anything, and the group of prisoners wearing striped clothes, yellow stars, and inked numbers were marched down worn-out streets to where the horizon line of the near town could be seen.

In town, the inhabitants watched jeeringly and scornfully at the crowd. Insults hung in the air, but they did not brush Feli. He was not a Jew, he did not wear the star, and he was proud of being Italian. He was proud of being Resistenza Italia.

They ceased their marching in front of a factory, old and desolate. A man in a suit eyed them disdainfully from where he talked coldly with the lieutenant that had marched the prisoners down to the town. They stopped talking so that the man in the suit could address the half-dead group of men.

The speech was short, but not sweet like the gelatos Feli had once liked to eat at merenda. They, rather, were as sharp as the whistles bullets made when the cut through air. Feli did not have experience at using a hammer and building things. If only this man in the suit appreciated art, and paintings, maybe he could escape the hell that was Dachau.

But the man had no obvious need for artistic talent, and Feli was too terrified and smart to ask. Instead, the small Italian marched back to Dachau with the rest of his fellow Barracks men. They passed through the town that laughed insults, scorning the religion that was sacred to the Jewish.

The yellow stars never seemed so repulsive to the Jewish. To Feli, the stars had never before seemed more unwanted. For once, he was glad that he was caught as an Italian rebel and not a Jew. Feli knew that the Germans hated the Jewish more than the rebellious Italians. He had a better chance.

The soldiers at Dachau seemed to agree with Feli. They did not hound him as much as they did the Jewish prisoners. Feli was no respected as a senior prisoner, if that was anything to be respected for. In any case, Feli knew that the title he now had meant more food and better living conditions. He was going to take that opportunity.

Remembering the generosity that he had been shown once, he allowed himself to share small bits of food with the younger men that reminded him of how he had once been. He had taken one boy under his wing especially: a fourteen-year-old by the name of Max. Max was an Italian Jew, and he easily conversed with Feli in their mother tongue.

Through eavesdropping on the soldiers' conversations while working relentlessly, he knew that it had been a year since he had lost Romano: it was now 1943. Feli heard whispered rumors that the war was going well for the Germans, and it frightened him to no end.

It reminded him that Romano was in Poland, a country away, and no way to tell if he still had a brother anymore. It reminded him that he had now spent three years surviving just barely in Dachau. Feli, after all this time, didn't want to remember anymore. He just wanted to survive this, or die soon so he wouldn't have to go through much more of this inhuman torture.

Distractions were present sometimes. At night, when it was a full moon, Feli would stand by the window of the barrack and look out to the wire fence. Beyond that fence, the world carried on as if it didn't even care. Feli told himself that it wasn't true: that there was an entire war raging in order to free him and his brother, and save Italy.

Sometimes, Max would ask for a story about Feli's childhood, and Feli would readily tell him about how he and Romano used to run through the streets of Catanzaro or Roma. He would tell stories of the Mafia in Palermo, or the culture of Torino or even Genova. Max's love for Italy fueled Feli's love to tell stories.

Max helped translate Feli's story, so that the other prisoners could fully appreciate the beauty of what Feli was sharing to them. They would occasionally flicker their lips into a sad smile whenever Feli would get too passionate about a certain memory, or when Feli recounted the first time he had kissed a bella. They would shed tears when Feli told stories of his Grandpa between light cries: of how the proud Resistenza leader had been publically executed in Firenze's town square.

It encouraged one of the Jewish prisoners to tell stories of his childhood in Poland, and the stories he shared of his sister. Max even was inspired to tell a small tale of his Russian lineage and how proud he was that his uncle was fighting for the Russians against the Nazis on the eastern front. He had gotten cheers for that tale.

Feli, most of the time, didn't know whether to smile or sob or mix the two into a wonderfully awful blend.

"What are you looking at?" Max asked one night, seeing Feli standing alone by the window.

"The sky," Feli had told the boy, holding back the sob buried within his wavering voice. "It's really beautiful tonight, Max. You can see the constellations, and Venus, and it's all so beautiful."

Max didn't join him to look at the sky.

Feli didn't mind; he kept talking aloud so that he could keep his sanity. "Fratello taught me all of the constellations when we were younger," he remembered. "I always loved the stories behind them, and the gods and goddesses the planets were named after."

"Maybe you should tell those stories tomorrow during dinner," Max suggested. He sounded tired. "May I go to sleep, Feliciano?"

Feli nodded wordlessly, and then remembered how dark the barrack was. "Of course," he whispered into the dark air.

The next morning, Max didn't wake up. He had drifted into a deep, deep sleep somewhere halfway into a cough. Typhoid swam in the mucus gummed in his lungs. Feli did not cry. He simply went to work as he always did, but he did not tell the others the stories of the sky.

Three months later, Feli was being deported to a different concentration camp. He didn't know the name, but he knew it was far away. The skies were cold once more: 1944 was creeping closer and closer with each passing hour of starving stomach and trembling limbs.

They were boarded onto trains. The furious barking of the dogs sounded distant to Feli's ears. The shouts of the German language seemed too harsh to understand. The bullets that shattered the fragility of the air made too many crumple from their weight and escape the rest of the torture the living had yet to endure.

The trip was long and cold. By the sixth day of open exposure to the winter in nothing but rags and without food, Feli found himself as one of the last six remaining alive in their car. Feli didn't know if he counted it as a curse or luck, but he did not count it as a blessing like the others in the car did.

It was all too cold. When the train reached the next concentration camp, Feli and one other was all that was left of the original forty men. Feli was the weaker of the two, naturally thin. He had no muscle to help him walk off. It was by some miracle that the doctor didn't send him to the gas chambers at the gates to camp.

Nonetheless, both he and the other man left from his car was let into the camp. Out of the 200 deported, only sixty made it through the journey. Only forty made it into the camp to be put to more grueling work.

The group of only forty, a fifth of the original, passed underneath the iron sign. 'Arbeit Macht Frei'. Feli wondered briefly if that was ever going to be true for him or any of the other prisoners. He wasn't given long to think. He was thrown into Barrack 12, near the front of the camp.

He shivered there with the other, disease-stricken prisoners. By the third day, he just barely recognized tanned skin and olive-green eyes digging a trench beside him. At first, he didn't believe it. The next stage was denial; he didn't want to believe it.

"Antonio?"

The Spaniard looked up, confused by the use of his name. It was obvious that nearly four years of nothing but a number had made him unused to the sound of his name on the tongue. He looked around, and Feli repeated the Spaniard's name. Antonio caught sight of the little Italian.

Discreetly, he slipped over to Feli's side. "Feliciano!" he exclaimed in a mixture of grief, happiness, and surprise. "Feliciano!" he repeated.

The Italian found himself hugging the Spaniard desperately, letting lose all of the tears and wails he had tried to keep pent up in Dachau. The Spaniard tried to quiet him, tried so desperately to quiet the poor boy. Finally, at the shout of a German, Feli bit his lip to keep all of his emotions in.

"You need a haircut," Antonio remarked, his green gaze sweeping the brown locks that were Feliciano's hair. He even had his old haircurl back. "Romano's hair was long too, last I saw of him." Antonio's gaze grew more distant, forgetting to continue digging. A small well of moisture made itself present at the apexes of his eyes.

Feli choked on air and turned, horrified, to Antonio. "Fratello isn't dead, is he?" Panic struck him true to the core.

Antonio coughed in surprise. "Oh no! Well, I don't think so, anyway. He was sent off to another camp maybe a year ago. He was so stubborn, all the time. He was calm around the officers, of course. But around me, he never admitted that he wanted my rations or that he was scared."

Feli wanted to break down crying from intense sadness and immense happiness. "Did he miss me?" Feli asked, his voice wobbling on ballerina toes like the way a dancer falls during practice.

Antonio stared at Feli. "Of course he did, Feli. He cried in his dreams, every night, yelling your name out as if he was watching you being tortured in his dreams. Apparently, that was exactly was his dreams were about." Antonio's eyes clouded. "His own mind was torturing him. At least he cared about me enough to have a nightmare where I was being tortured once. I held him close through the rest of the night."

Feli bit his lip. "You like Fratello," he commented.

Antonio sighed. "For what it's worth in a time like this, yes, Feli; I love Romano. I don't know what I'll do if he doesn't survive this. I guess I'll just go back to Spain. What about you?"

"How do you know we're getting out of here?" Feli asked. "It's been four years, Antonio. Wouldn't the Allies have won by now if they were ever going to?"

Antonio sighed, and looked up at the sky. Feli followed his gaze to see only a single cloud in the blue ocean. To Feli's eyes, it looked like the swastika always worn by the officers. He didn't like it.

"The Allies are still fighting hard; I'm sure of it," Antonio sounded as if he was trying to convince himself as well as Feli. "Romano never lost hope. Sure, he cursed out France and America and England for taking so long. He never lost hope, though. He always believed that Italy was going to stand up for itself, and that the Allies will someday win. You should have seen the way he argued that point, Feli. His eyes would light up like yours when you talk of art."

Feli listened, interested. It had been a long time since he had heard someone other than himself speak of Romano. When they split up to go to Barracks, Feli found that Antonio was in Barrack 11. Sometime in the night, Feli remembered being shocked to see Antonio slipping into Feli's bunk and pulling the Italian close to help with the nightmares.


	3. Tre

Every day, Feli had begun noticing small things outside of camp. Yesterday, he had seen a cloud so thin and long that it looked like the path of a wayward star. Today, he saw a pretty flower blooming from the farthest corner of camp. He had risked his life foolishly, and Antonio had fretted over him all night for it, but Feli snatched the flower of purple.

Later that night, it had been crushed by the other bodies huddling together for warmth on the bunk. Feli had cried, and it was over something so pitifully irrelevant and small. Romano had always considered him a crybaby.

"Feli?" the hoarse whisper woke him from his plagued sleep.

Feli glanced around worriedly, before realizing that Antonio was gripping onto him tightly. Antonio's eyes were wide, and their green depths didn't seem to even be looking at Feli anymore.

"Antonio?" Feli whispered back, moving so he could properly see the Spaniard.

A fit of raucous coughing broke out from Antonio's shivering body. He had been having the chills for many days now. His nose was streaming, but he didn't seem to care. His lips were in a broken smile.

"I'm tired, Feli," he told the Italian.

Feli shook his head. "That's because you're tired," he answered. "Go to sleep. I'll wake you up in the morning."

Antonio only sighed. Feli rustled around before seeing a few squashed petals of violet. He held it up for Antonio to see. "A flower, see Antonio?"

Antonio smiled for real now, his eyes visibly fondling the remnants of beauty. "Violeta," he murmured, leaning his head back to relax. "Púrpura…I wonder how beautiful Spain looks today."

Feli swallowed. "I wonder how beautiful Palermo looks today," he echoed similarly. He could remember the layout of the old streets as if they were sketched on the back of his hand.

Antonio sighed again. "I wonder where Romano is right now. He was always so obstinate. You should have seen him the first nights we were here. We had the same barrack. I never knew how cute he looked when he was sleeping."

Feli didn't know why Antonio was trying to recall that. Wherever Romano was, it had to be better than here. "You love him," Feli stated both dumbly and wisely.

Antonio chuckled lightly in a cracked voice. His green eyes, which so strikingly resembled beautiful jade, became distant in the dark light. "I do," he murmured.

Feli shifted. "How did fratello survive here? He would have hated the crematoriums."

Antonio shook his head. "Romano dug trenches like you and I. You're right; he would've died of guilt and grief in the crematoriums. The nights made up for it, I suppose."

"The nights?" Feli asked. Feli was aware that the night gave the prisoners safety from bullets and soldiers. However, he didn't like lying there and listening to the coughs of the sick and the sobs of the heart-broken.

Antonio chuckled again. "I had imagined it many times, Feli. I never thought your brother's lips would be so perfect."

"Oh," Feli replied dumbly. His head held images of his Fratello and Antonio kissing. But the images were hard to imagine. Feli always thought that Romano wanted to have his first time in a nice place. "You had sex."

Antonio shot up from lying down to sitting upright. "Sex?" he asked incredulously. "No, Feli. We didn't do it here in all places. We just kissed. I'll never forget the look on his face when I told him just how much I loved him."

"The soldiers would punish you for that," Feli choked out. "Isn't it bad to be gay? Grandpa always said it was, and so does the Church! Romano was Catholic, like me! How could he be gay? I thought that the Pope didn't like that kind of stuff!"

Antonio watched Feli for a long time. "It's perfectly fine to love someone of the same gender, Feli. Your Fratello understood that, and I think that's why he was alright with confessing to me his own feelings. Your Pope doesn't like it, true, and most of the Church doesn't either. But it isn't a bad thing, Feli. It's just like loving a girl, only it is more to your preference."

Feli stayed silent. "Is that why Romano always went to you for help, Antonio?"

Antonio forced a laugh. "Romano loved me since he was a kid, but I don't think he's realized just how long he's loved me."

"How long have you loved him?"

Another sigh. "A very long time."

Three months later, in the March of 1944, Antonio was deported to a concentration camp very close to the Italian border. When the Spaniard had heard the name of the camp, he brightened. Feli, confused, asked why.

Apparently, that was where Romano had been sent a year ago. So, Feli reflected, Antonio was desperate to see Fratello again. Feli was just as desperate, but he could guess from Antonio's shining eyes that Antonio was happier than Feli could ever be. Even in this state, Feli didn't think he had ever seen Antonio so hopeful.

When April rolled around, and the snow began melting away from the land of Poland, Feli saw a group of birds fly by overhead. They sang pretty songs as they passed by and, during the night, Feli tried to copy their song through his own whistles.

It was terrifying the next day. Apparently, there was a new group of soldiers coming to the prison camp of Auschwitz. To make an example of the expectations for the new shift of soldiers and commandant, the former authorities held an execution in the middle of each group of barracks.

Ten barracks watched as a number, a number belonging to one of the barracks, was called. Feli held his breath as the soldier in charge of his barrack readied to call the number of barrack to be executed. Barrack 14 was called, and Feli hid a sigh of relief.

The men lined up as ordered, and the soldiers drew their guns to the back of the prisoners' heads. Feli pretended to blink when the shots went off, and pretended further that he needed to keep them closed long than necessarily.

When he opened his eyes, he just wanted to close them again. The spared barracks shuffled back into the cramped rooms, and into the cramped bunks. Stiffness laid in each of them.

Feli didn't know what to think. When he had to dig the graves the next day, he tried not to look at the piles of ash they pour into the holes. The ground was unforgiving.

"Sie," a low voice spoke.

Feli jumped and spun around, meeting the unmistakable German that had spoken. The German had blonde hair, steely grey eyes, and a hissing scar across his chin. The German beckoned for the brunette Italian to follow.

Feli did so obediently, and met up with a small group of other prisoners. They were marched to the nearest town, something Feli was not expecting. Confused, he tried to see as much of the world as he possibly could.

When they arrived in town, the streets seemed deserted. Feli had never been more confused. This was Poland, shouldn't people be bustling about? At a street corner, he caught a glimpse of a newspaper. His heart caught in his throat. He saw Italy written in bold there on the headline.

Dashing over, he fell to his knees beside the paper with a loud wail driven straight from his heart. On the cover, it showed that Italy had surrendered. Mussolini was gone. Italy was once again free. Romano was right; loyalty to their country had paid off.

Feli cried out loudly, in a mix of pure blissful joy and despair. He didn't know why he was despairing and why he felt so shattered there on the sidewalk corner in Poland, just two miles away from Auschwitz.

All he did know was that he didn't remember ever being so happy. Mussolini was away from Italy, and Italy was now safe from the war. Feli shook with sobs. He clutched the newspaper fragment to his chest, and then a thought occurred to him. Reading through teary eyes, he caught sight of the date.

September 8, 1943. Italy had been free for seven months now. The joy was fantastic.

He turned back to the others, and saw them all watching his heart break there on the grimy street. The German soldier watched him through his steely eyes, but didn't make a move to point his gun.

Feliciano was horribly, horribly confused as to why the soldier wasn't angry. That was until a click sounded behind him. Feli spun around to see the barrel of hand gun only millimeters away from his forehead. The German holding the gun did not have a shaky hand. He was a dirty blonde with light blue eyes and an evil glare that made Feli shrink.

Feli couldn't think of anything. So, he said one of the dumbest things he could have.

"Siamo liberi."

The man hesitated. Feli didn't know what from. Perhaps it was the unfamiliarity of the Italian language to German-born ears. Maybe it was the boldness of the words Feli had spoken. Either way, he hesitated. One of the other Jews in line ran.

The Jewish prisoner crashed into the armed man. Feli's breath caught in his throat. He scrambled away, back to the group he had come with. The leader of their small patrol began hitting him with the hilt of his gun.

A shot rang out into the air, and Feli flung his head up to see where the bullet had done its damaging purpose. Lying on the street was the man that had saved Feli by distracting the German soldier. Feli screamed loudly and cowered when the patrol leader began beating him with the hilt of his gun.

He couldn't understand German, but he understood the spite behind the foreign words. He cried out and begged for mercy until he was roughly pulled up by his shirt collar to look the patrol leader in the blue eye.

More words were being yelled at him, and Feli loudly wailed in between the harsh syllables that made up the Germanic language. Everything froze in Feli's mind when yet another gun was pointed at him.

It would have gone off if it had not been for a shout down the street. Feli glanced around the man holding his shirt to have his head spin with confusion. Romano stood there, fully clothed in the uniform of the Gestapo. Feli hoped that Romano hadn't been tortured into working for the Nazi's: he would die if he had to fight his Fratello.

"Aufhören!" Romano yelled, stomping up. In German, he continued so that Feli could not understand.

"What is your business, shooting a member of the Italian Resistance?" Romano demanded. "He is in the custody of the Gestapo. What is your name, lieutenant?"

The soldier shifted. "Kemmelst," he responded. "Why is an Italian in the Gestapo?"

"Some Italians know which side they're on. Tell me, Kemmelst, do you like skiing?" Romano questioned. When the soldier merely looked confused, he added, "I'll have you written up for deportation to the Russian Front. I've heard that the winters there are very beautiful."

The soldier paled. "Nein, Herr. Take the Italian prisoner."

Romano motioned for Feli to come closer. Feli had to restrain himself from not rushing to fratello's side and sobbing into the dark charcoal uniform. Instead, he hunched beside Romano. His Fratello finished up curt words with Lieutenant Kemmelst before walking away.

When they turned the corner onto a different street, littered with glass and old belongings dirtied by the street's grime, Feli turned to Romano. "Fratello?" he asked softly, his voice betraying the tears he was forcing himself to not shed.

"Shut up," Romano growled; he pushed his brother down and into the basement of one of the stores.

"How did you esca-"

Feli was cut off by a viciously murderous glare curtesy of Romano. "I said shut up," Romano growled, closing the cellar door. The room went pitch black.

Feli shivered, until the flare of a match made him jerk away and crumple into the corner. Romano stood with a match in his hand and a lantern burning beside his head from where it hung from the flakey ceiling.

"How did you escape, Fratello?" Feli felt the tears still streaming down his face, but his chest no longer convulsed uncontrollably with screeches of grief and sobs of unbearable thought.

Romano sighed and slid down to the concrete floor. Feli had never seen his older brother so ragged and starved. "It was a bad idea," he mumbled. "That damn Spaniard never has good ideas. He got himself caught because of his damn idea. Damn him, Feli. Damn him…damn me."


End file.
